MacTech Blog

Apr 28

Cars learning to replace humans creates a $250 billion...

Deep learning machines are taking over a large portion of drivers' automotive tasks and will completely take over driving in 10 years, according to a recently published report by IoT [Internet of Things] market research firm ON World (www.onworld.com).

"The connected car is experiencing exponential technological advancements and enormous investment over the past three years," says Mareca Hatler, ON World's research director. "This accelerated growth can be seen in the patents granted, favorable government regulations and the videos of Tesla cars driving their occupants to work while they shave.”

3Cinteractive (3c.com), a provider of mobile marketing services, has unveiled its 2017 Mobile Loyalty Progress Report, providing an update on how brands are bridging the technology gap in offering mobile-enabled loyalty programs to consumers.

Last year, 3C surveyed brand marketers and consumers on the landscape of mobile-enabled loyalty program offerings, and the report uncovered a distinct gap in what brands were offering versus consumer expectations. This year, 3C again presented its mobile loyalty online survey to more than 2,300 consumers and over 500 brand marketers, finding improvements in some key areas. In fact, 64% of brands reported an increase in loyalty program membership over the last year—and the majority cited the addition of mobile components as the biggest contributor to this increase. Other key findings:

We live in a visual society, and increasingly a video society. The corporate world knows this, and is leveraging video for uses other than just branding or marketing. Video is now often used to communicate important messages for moving people to action: for example, to invite investors to take a stake in your company, to encourage employees to rally around a strategy or initiative, or to recruit prospective employees.

As a filmmaker and creative director, I’m constantly looking for the next technology or trend to make my own work stronger and understand the context that corporations are coming to the table with. Here are some trends I’ve noticed lately.

° Welcome to the video tsunami. Video is by far the way more and more people want to receive messages and information. We’re at the crest of the wave, and the surf is up. By 2020, 84% of all Internet traffic will be video. That’s an astounding number.

A new study from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games such as World of Warcraft, and MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games including DoTA 2, are to account for almost 25% of the digital games industry this year.

The new research forecasts that revenues from this genre will accelerate to $43bn by 2021, accounting for over a third of global games industry revenues. The research cites the F2P (Free to Play) model as being the key catalyst. The research also found that console and mobile devices offer great scope for future growth, with these platforms having been underutilized until now, particularly in Western markets.

Nevertheless, Juniper predicted that opportunity across these platforms would be distinct for MMO and MOBA games, with emerging technology and business model innovation acting to increase traction. For example,...

Venafi (www.venafi.com), a provider of machine identity protection, has announced the results of a study on the cryptographic security practices of DevOps teams. Cryptographic security risks are amplified in DevOps settings, where compromises in development or test environments can spread to production systems and applications.

According to the study, many organizations fail to enforce vital cryptographic security measures in their DevOps environments. These problems are especially acute among organizations that are in the midst of adopting DevOps practices, but even organizations that say their DevOps practices are mature do not follow security practices designed to protect cryptographic keys and digital certificates.

“It’s clear that most organizations are still struggling with securing the cryptographic keys and digital certificates used to uniquely identify machines,” said Kevin Bocek, chief security...

NSS Labs (www.nsslabs.com), which specializes in operationalizing cybersecurity, has announced the results of its Data Center Firewall (DCFW) Group Test. Seven products from five vendors were tested. All seven products scored 100% in firewall policy enforcement testing, but no product demonstrated the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) across all tested scenarios.

Enterprises store vast quantities of sensitive, business-critical information in modern data centers. Growth in the deployment of mobility and cloud computing technologies in data centers has transformed traffic patterns from a predominantly business-to-business (B2B) model with long duration connections commonly found in software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to a business-to-consumer (B2C) model with short lived, high-volume connections, such as e-commerce transactions. When selecting DCFWs to support these use cases, enterprises look for products...

The global market of artificial intelligence is anticipated to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of over 60% during 2017-2022, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

On the basis of application, global artificial intelligence market has been broadly segmented into image recognition, natural language processing, speech recognition, gesture control and others, according to the research group. Among these categories, image recognition dominated global artificial intelligence market in 2016, and the segment is expected to maintain its dominance over the next five years as well.

These machines are also capable of taking decisions by self-learning from the nearby environment. Global artificial intelligence market is expected to grow at a robust pace over the next five years, owing to its widespread implementation in numerous industries, such as automobile,...

According to a research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight (www.berginsight.com), the total value of the global real-time mobile location-based advertising and marketing (LBA) market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54% to € 10.7 billion in 2018.

This will then correspond to 38.6% of all mobile advertising and marketing. Location-based advertising and marketing will thus represent around 7% of digital advertising, or 2 percent of the total global ad spend for all media, according to the research group.

The past year has seen a number of significant developments in the real-time mobile LBA space. One example is the concept of beacons based on Bluetooth low energy (BLE).

"The concept of Bluetooth marketing has been reinvigorated following Apple’s introduction of iBeacon in 2013,"says Rickard Andersson, senior analyst, Berg Insight.

Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc. (DCL) and the Center for Information Development Management (CIDM), have released the results of the 5th annual "Following the Trends – Is Your Content Ready?" survey, and the results show, among many other insights, that a surprising 51% of those polled responded "No," that their content is not ready – a 21% increase over last year.

Each year the survey's goal is to probe and track how, and if, organizations or individual professionals are adapting their processes and content to be more viable in an increasingly electronic world. Questions covered a wide range of topics around content, including types of content being developed (User Manuals, Release Notes, Training Materials), authoring tools (XML author, MS Word, FrameMaker), and mobile strategies, as well as classic concerns like staff, budgets, and time.

Spanning five years, this survey has attracted almost 1900 respondents with 2017's drawing in 369 professionals. "There is...

Citi says that the affordability of financial services fell by 3.2% in high-performing countries, but grew by 2.3% in emerging ones – highlighting that many countries in the developed world are still struggling to bring their unbanked and underbanked in to the digital fold.

“The efficiencies and cost savings of moving to digital money are potentially staggering,” says Greg Baxter, Citi’s global head of Digital, “and the social benefits from wider financial inclusion enormous. It is therefore a concern that the Index is highlighting a risk that some low-income countries and potentially even low income segments within developed countries could fall irretrievably behind in the digital economy.”

Citi’s research finds that true adoption of digital money can only happen when there is a concerted, holistic effort that includes a supportive institutional environment, financial and ICT infrastructure, digital money solutions from government and the private sector, and...

Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to total $386 billion in 2017, an increase of 12.3% from 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

Favorable market conditions that gained momentum in the second half of 2016, particularly for commodity memory, have accelerated and raised the outlook for the market in 2017 and 2018, according to the research group. However, the memory market is fickle, and additional capacity in both DRAM and NAND flash is expected to result in a correction in 2019.

"While price increases for both DRAM and NAND flash memory are raising the outlook for the overall semiconductor market, it will also put pressure on margins for system vendors of smartphones, PCs and servers," said Jon Erensen, research director at Gartner. "Component shortages, a rising bill of materials, and the prospect of having to counter by raising average selling prices (ASPs) will create a volatile...

UI LABS (uilabs.org) and The Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) have released first augmented reality (AR) hardware and software functional requirements guidelines, which will help AR technology companies develop products for industrial users.

These AR functional requirements documents are designed to lead to technology that improves the performance and efficiency for manufacturers in a number of areas, including employee training and safety; factory floor and field services operations; machine assembly, inspection and repair; manufacturing space and product design; and much more.

Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Procter & Gamble initiated the guidelines development process as part of a project through the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII), a UI LABS collaboration. Recently, 65 organizations — including industry, AR providers, universities, and government agencies — came together for a workshop to offer insight into their...

IHS Markit (www.ihs.com) — an information, analytics and solutions firm — says the market for wireless power and charging is expected to grow in 2017, with global receiver shipments reaching 325 million units by year end. The market grew approximately 40% in 2016.

According to the new report, mobile phones remain the primary driver for development of wireless power technology and mobile phones, laptops and wearable devices will drive receiver market growth. Receiver unit shipments are expected to climb this year as demand increases; Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) make their decision on specifications; and the market moves towards glass-backed phones.

In 2016, the flagship Samsung handset made the biggest single contribution to enabled receiver shipments, according to IHS Markit. Samsung’s decision to retain wireless charging on the Galaxy S7, and LG’s decision to add the technology to its new G6 device (U....

Online consumer payments remain the biggest growth market in payments, and will continue growing strongly as more consumers gain access to the Internet and to tools that can be used online, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

Developing countries, particularly China, are expected to be at the forefront of this growth, although even the most developed online commerce markets will grow strongly over the next five years, adds the research group. In fact, China overtook the US as the world's largest online commerce market in 2015, with Chinese consumers spending a total of $699 billion online that year.

According to Research and Markets, 20% of the total value of online commerce transactions across all markets will be accounted for by m-commerce by 2020, with the market recording a compound annual growth rate of 17% from 2015 to 2020. Consumer spending patterns...

On April 3, President Trump allowed Internet Service Providers to collect and sell user data. Many experts feel that this was just the beginning - and the signs of new developments are already visible.

A notice has already been served by Trump administration that net neutrality - which guarantees that all content is equally accessible - will be possibly revoked. If that happens, ISPs will also be able to control which content users see, giving preference to more lucrative options, and making it harder for independent streaming services or smaller sites to compete.

As a result of the rights given to Internet Service Providers, a new type of an ISP might emerge: an ISP that is also an ad network and content company, taking full advantage of data it receives from its tracking supercookies and other methods.

According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of World Wide Web, the measure repealing the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) online...

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.5 trillion in 2017, a 1.4% increase from 2016, according to Gartner (www.gartner.com). This growth rate is down from the previous quarter's forecast of 2.7% due in part to the rising U.S. dollar, adds the research group.

"The strong U.S. dollar has cut $67 billion out of our 2017 IT spending forecast," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. "We expect these currency headwinds to be a drag on earnings of U.S.-based multinational IT vendors through 2017."

The data center system segment is expected to grow 0.3% in 2017. While this is up from negative growth in 2016, the segment is experiencing a slowdown in the server market.

"We are seeing a shift in who is buying servers and who they are buying them from," said Lovelock. "Enterprises are moving away from buying servers from the traditional vendors and instead renting server power in...

According to the IDC (www.idc.com) research group, vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 9.2% year over year to $32.6 billion in 2016, with vendor revenue for the fourth quarter (4Q16) growing at 7.3% to $9.2 billion.

Cloud IT infrastructure sales as a share of overall worldwide IT spending climbed to 37.2% in 4Q16, up from 33.4% a year ago. Revenue from infrastructure sales to private cloud grew by 10.2% to $3.8 billion, and to public cloud by 5.3% to $5.4 billion. In comparison, revenue in the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment decreased 9.0% year over year in the fourth quarter.

Private cloud infrastructure growth was led by Ethernet switch at 52.7% year-over-year growth, followed by server at 9.3%, and storage at 3.6%. Public cloud growth was also led by Ethernet switch at 30.0% year-...

A new generation of smart home sensors, which ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) predicts to exceed four billion installations globally by 2022, will soon change how homes are built, maintained, and managed.

The sensors, embedded in a wide range of smart home devices and appliances, will deliver near real-time understanding of even slight changes within home environments, according to the research group. The ability to transform this data into valuable systems and services will be at the heart of smart home adoption and the future housing market.

"Smart home sensors will lay the foundation for the automated smart home experience," says Jonathan Collins, Research Director at ABI Research. "The advanced sensing capabilities will fine-tune new services and applications from home personalization to energy and security management."

A new report from Mobile Experts (www.mobile-experts.net) says the small cell forecast ratcheted down a notch this year, as some key programs in China and direct-to-enterprise channel did not materialize as anticipated. However, growth due to "densification" and indoor coverage has grown in strength, resulting in a strong revenue outlook, according to the research group.

"The overall market, including residential femtocells, is growing at about 17% (CAGR) over our forecast period," says Mobile Experts Senior Analyst Kyung Mun. "But the growth for non-residential small cells is even more dramatic. We expect carrier and enterprise segments to grow at over 30% CAGR from 2016-2022.”

According to Mobile Experts, market trends point to an upward trajectory this year. Carriers with broad LTE coverage are reaching a level of traffic density in excess of 1 Gbps/km2, which leads to a need for small cells...

New findings from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts that OTT messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Snapchat, will see adoption grow from 2.3 billion unique users in 2016 to 4.2 billion by 2021 representing a growth of over 12% CAGR (compound annual growth rate). The research group anticipates that players will begin focusing their strategies around the development and provision of AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot tools.

Juniper predicts that OTT players will reposition their messaging platforms as CRM (customer relationship management) tools. By leveraging AI technology, these OTT apps will offer a high value proposition by creating a new level of consumer engagement. For end-customers, these platforms offer an attractive means of engagement by allowing for greater consumer flexibility and minimizing call wait times, Juniper adds.

RESCUECOM (http://www.rescuecom.com), a computer repair company, has released its 2017 Computer Repair Report, which analyzes the data from its calls to provide insight and tips on how to handle top computer repair problems.

Modern apps are supposed to expand capabilities across multiple devices without the need to code a new app for each device; however, it seems that with each new Windows 10 build, something breaks, and that is likely with the...

Worldwide security tech spending to reach $81.7 billion in 2017
A new from International Data Corporation (www.idc.com) forecasts worldwide revenues for security-related hardware, software, and services will reach $81.7 billion in 2017, an increase of 8.2% over 2016.

Global spending on security solutions is expected to accelerate slightly over the next several years, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% through 2020 when revenues will be nearly $105 billion.

"The rapid growth of digital transformation is putting pressures on companies across all industries to proactively invest in security to protect themselves against known and unknown threats," said Eileen Smith, program director, Customer Insights and Analysis. "On a global basis, the banking, discrete manufacturing, and federal/central government industries will spend the most on security hardware, software, and services throughout the...

The global OLED display market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.86% during the period 2017-2021, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

The report from the research group has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is technological advances in augmented reality.

Apple partnered with Carl Zeiss, a German optics manufacturer, for the development of smart glasses set to be launched in the 2018. Based on patents released by Apple in June 2016, it used foldable TAMOLED display that can be wrapped around on the user's head. Apple's US patent No. 9,367,093 titled “Transparent Electronic Device” and patent No. 9,367,095 titled “Electronic Device with Wrap Around Display” would also have AR by incorporating TOLED.

Banks in the U.S. may have up to $45 billion of their profits at risk from digital disruption over the next three years, according to research by McKinsey & Company, underscoring the urgent need for these banks to upgrade their technology to meet the demands of an increasingly digital economy. Continuing to rely heavily on older legacy systems may lead to a significant loss of market share, as well as other challenges that threaten the business model favored by traditional players.

The report added that entry barriers for non-bank competitors may be easing, and large tech players may be able to come between banks and their customers. In an environment where many customers would rather use their smartphones or computer tablets for their banking needs, banks must to implement the right balance between human and digital interactions with their customers.

I heard someone plop in one of my chairs and creak it back. A pair of boots heels thumped on my table.

”Hope you're not wearing spurs today," I said without turning. Nellie Hacker is...rather informal. "That table is for helping my students with their assignments. Gouges would be counterproductive."

"Calculus, no doubt. What's the topic de jour? Lemmie see. 'Given an elliptical cross section with axis lengths 10 and 15 centimetres, the formula for the depth of the water, the rate of inflow and the volume of water going down a reverse trap as a function of time, how quickly is the surface area of the water changing three seconds after you flush the toilet?'"

"No, this is second semester. We're just into graphing conic sections in polar coordinates. But if you disliked it so much back in the day when you were my student, why did you do enough work to score an A+?"

Over half (52%) of small businesses in the US invested in search engine optimization (SEO) in 2016, and 74% expect to do so in 2017, according to new research from Clutch (http://tinyurl.com/khbooa5), a B2B research and reviews firm. In addition, 66% of small businesses say they plan to invest in pay-per-click (PPC) digital advertising, such as Google search ads, by the end of 2017.

But despite this increased adoption of SEO as a digital marketing tactic, there is still a great deal of opportunity for small businesses to become more comprehensive in their search marketing strategies. Over 50% limit their SEO activities to local and on-site optimization compared to other initiatives such as content creation or guest posting.

The wearables growth story continues unabated in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, with shipments reaching an all-time high of 746,000 units in the final quarter of 2016, according to the latest figures compiled by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The global ICT research and consulting services firm says shipments were up 29.0% year on year in Q4 2016, spurred by new launches from leading vendors and the entrance of new players to the market, according to the research group.

When looking at 2016 as a whole, IDC’s (www.idc.com) data shows that wearables shipments for the MEA region were up 52.2% year on year. This was primarily driven by the strong performance of low-cost basic wearables (i.e., devices that do not support third-party applications), which grew 67.9% year on year in 2016. The growth for smart wearable devices (i.e., devices that do support third-party applications) was not quite as...

Results from the IDC (www.idc.com) “2016 Global IoT Decision Maker Survey” highlights that 41% of healthcare organizations in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) plan to launch at least one IoT solution in the next two years, with over 63% of organizations believing it to be the central theme for driving digital transformation in health.

Other key findings for APeJ from the 2016 survey include:
° 63% of organizations see IoT as strategic to their business in order to overcome disruptive changes in the health delivery process.

° Remote patient monitoring, resource utilization and tracking are the key priority areas that these health organizations will focus their IOT efforts on.

° Security related concerns and the fear of recurring costs are the two primary reasons for acceptance of IOT on a large scale – especially with large private hospitals.

Last year, Federal Communications Commission had passed strict privacy regulations (not yet in effect), banning ISPs (Internet Service Providers) from selling their subscriber’s browsing data without consent. Last week, these regulations were reversed in the Senate, allowing ISPs to collect all possible information about their subscribers.

Such data includes precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children’s information and web browsing history. This also means that from now on, an Internet provider can sell their users’ private data to third parties, such as ad buyers, ad aggregators, and anyone else who might want to use it for their purposes.

True, FCC’s regulations did not cover Facebook and Google that are able to collect data without any bigger restrictions. However, putting a brake on ISPs data collection/ and sharing powers would have saved Internet users’ Internet browsing privacy.

Avast (www.avg.com), which specializes in digital security products for business and consumers, revealed that more than half (52%) of the most popular PC applications running on PCs around the world, including Flash and Java are out-of-date.

The Avast PC Trends Report Q1 2017, based on insights from the company’s AVG TuneUp product, highlights the top 10 outdated applications, the most used programs and hardware, and shows the problems people face by not keeping their PC up-to-date. Most critically, people are exposing their PC and their personal data to risks, as malware targets older versions of software to exploit vulnerabilities.
Gathered anonymously from 116 million Windows® desktop and laptop users running AVG TuneUp’s Automatic Software Updater feature, Avast found the most out-of-date programs include:

Nearly 96 million Americans (or 31% of the population) have had their Internet network, e-mail, or computer hacked or compromised. That's according to the results of the Ooma.com Internet Security Survey—a survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by Ooma.

Notable findings of the study include:

° 172 million Americans (or 54% of the population) have accidentally visited a website that infected their computer with a virus. A lack of awareness of which websites are phishing for their personal information or contain spyware, malware, or other threats leaves users exposed.

° 70 million Americans (or 22% of the population) wish their devices were protected from online threats such as viruses, phishing, and malware. Other users are either unaware that such threats exist, or don't know how to conduct safe searches, blacklist or whitelist domains, or filter content.

° 38 million American parents (or 12%) wish they could block access to certain websites for their...

In the first half of 2016, US and UK smartphone users were most likely to be interested in purchasing a device with a 5.3-inch or 5.0-inch display, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com).

The study also found that males showed a preference for larger devices than females, while Android owners still preferred larger devices than Apple owners. As in 2015, current smartphone owners are also more likely to prefer a thicker prototype with a longer battery life over a thinner phone.

Smartphone size preference remained stable in the first half of 2016, within the range of 5 to 5 inches. However, this was slightly smaller than in the first half of 2015, as the 5.3-inch smartphone was previously most preferred.

As in 2015, almost half of respondents in this study also expressed interest in a smartphone with a display size only slightly larger than...

It’s become news that’s not unexpected any more. We awaken to learn that yet another national retailer has been hacked and once again credit-card information for millions of customers is at risk.
Yet, despite all the publicity these security breaches receive and all the warning consumers hear, cyber criminals still achieve success and seem more brazen than ever.

“Sometimes it can feel like the cyber criminals are working harder than the people who are supposed to be protecting our information,” says Gary S. Miliefsky, CEO of SnoopWall (www.snoopwall.com), a company that specializes in cyber security.
But when consumers and businesses are vigilant, he says, they can foil those cyber criminals despite all their scheming. To that end, Miliefsky says some cyber security trends and factors worth knowing about for the rest of 2017 and beyond include:

New data from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that retailers will connect 12.5 billion business assets, such as products, digital signs and Bluetooth beacons, to IoT platforms by 2021. This figure is expected to rise from 2.7 billion in 2016, representing a 350% increase, according to the research group.

Juniper predicts that RFID (radio-frequency identification), will re-emerge as the industry’s “killer app,” becoming the key factor in the IoT retail ecosystem. RFID tags, used to identify and locate retail assets in real-time, are now at a low enough price point for mass deployment and integrate well with new IoT systems and analytics. New services, such as dynamic pricing or enabling promotional offers via in-store digital signs are also poised for growth.

Juniper’s latest research argues that “next-gen” processes, such as personalized retail, could be achieved by...

With its ability to reach and engage multiple audiences worldwide, video is becoming a vital component of the marketing toolkit. In 2017, video content is expected to account for 74% of all Internet traffic.

Research indicates that businesses that use video to market grew revenue 49% faster year-over-year than businesses that did not. When it comes to attracting an audience, four times as many customers would prefer to watch a product video rather than read about it. Asad Khan, founder of ePlanet Communications, Inc. (http://www.eplanetcom.com/), a global business process outsourcing provider, points out that the use of video in marketing is a vital part of an overall strategy.

Research has shown that video marketing offers a significant return on investment and increases the likelihood of a sale. While it costs an average of $115 in marketing funds to convert a sales lead using non-...

In 2015 Solar-Tectic (www.solar-tectic.com) announced plans to develop sapphire glass. Now the company has announced that it’s succeeded in developing this sapphire glass using its patent pending technique, which was reported on in “Materials Letters,” a peer reviewed journal.

The new sapphire glass technique involves the deposition of a highly transparent crystalline Al2O3 (aluminum oxide) thin-film on ordinary soda-lime glass, via a thin buffer layer, using a simple and common deposition technique (e-beam evaporation), thus achieving a breakthrough material which is much less expensive and much lighter than single crystal sapphire, and easily scalable for manufacturing and commercialization.

The sapphire film is extremely thin which is important for cost reduction in manufacturing. In recent years Apple Inc. and others have tried without success in making cost effective sapphire glass for...

“The way we consume content has changed dramatically in the past decade, but the tools financial services firms use to create and manage content have changed very little,” Gavin Drake, vice president of Marketing for Quark Software. “\ This makes it almost impossible to keep up with the demand to deliver timely and accurate multi-channel content, which is a requirement for firms that...

The worldwide application integration and middleware (AIM) software market continues to grow faster than the overall infrastructure software market, with revenue on pace to surpass $27 billion in 2017, an increase of 7% from 2016, according to the Gartner, Inc (www.gartner.com) research group.

"Established approaches to application infrastructure are too rigid, closed and cumbersome to support many digital business requirements," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner. "Growth in mobile, big data, analytics, in-memory computing, cloud and Internet of Things initiatives is associated with digital business and requires application and integration professionals to invest in new AIM technologies. This in turn drives fresh integration approaches with new AIM technologies at their core, such as application programmable interface management and integration platform as a service.”

The number of new devices connected to the Internet is estimated to reach 21 billion by 2020, but recent reports indicate that the tech sector’s diversity and inclusion practices have failed to meet a commensurate level of innovation.

From a 2016 report by Intel and Dalberg Global Development Advisors, almost two-thirds of tech workers are white. The industry could, however, generate an additional $300-$370 billion annually if the racial/ethnic diversity of their workforces reflected that of the national talent pool.

“The problem isn’t going away, and it will take some intense soul-searching on the part of tech leadership to get to the root of what ails it,” said Bill Proudman, co-founder and CEO of leading diversity and inclusion consulting firm White Men As Full Diversity Partners (http://www.wmfdp.com/) (WMFDP), which has worked extensively with Dell and other Fortune 500 tech companies...

A new study from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that a rapid rise in consumption of eSports and streamed games content will drive $3.5 billion in revenues by 2021, up from $1.8 billion in 2017

The report group’s report found that while the subscription model, as seen on platforms such as Twitch, will contribute significant revenues to the industry, it will be advertisers who reap rewards; with almost 90% of eSports and “Let’s Play” viewers also watching ad-supported casual games streams in 2021.

Alongside eSports viewership, the popularity of casual “Let’s Plays” (commentary on streams of the playing of video games) has accelerated dramatically. Juniper found that much of this relates to viewers seeking to improve their own gameplay, alongside a dedicated following of individual broadcasters on platforms including Twitch and YouTube. The research group argued that...

DeviceBits (www.DeviceBits.com) — a software company that offers digital customer service platforms designed to help companies make available self-service customer support materials, released results of its latest survey on customer service trends. The survey shows a disconnect in how brands are evolving their customer support initiatives and the desired preferences consumers have in obtaining customer service information.

Driven by the instant gratification of mobile, social media and search engines, as well as today’s omni-channel retail strategies, consumers of every age group today are desiring the ability to obtain customer service queries on-demand, at their own leisure, rather than opting for traditional customer service channels such as call centers, according to DeviceBits. What’s more, consumers seek a more personalized customer experience from their favorite brands, and this includes everything...

Amazon and Netflix are not only acquiring documentaries and films, but are also heavily involved in producing their own content using UHD technologies, according to a white paper released by IHS Markit (www.ihsmarkit.com), which specializes in critical information, analytics and solution.

Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services have among the lowest revenue per hour of content viewed and of paid content services, making premium content a greater investment. While films comprise the largest number of UHD titles, TV series offer a better return on hours of content viewed per dollar invested, according to IHS Markit. In the UK, Netflix offers 63 UHD titles. Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant have 28 and Sky has 26.

Despite over half of worldwide online customers using credit cards to make purchases, more than 50% of eCommerce sales are completed through alternative payment methods, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com). The combined share of different alternative payment methods in global eCommerce sales will rise, leaving the share of bank cards at a decrease, according to the research group.

Alternative payment methods are particularly favored over bank cards in emerging markets such as China. Here, e-wallets like Alipay made up for more than half of online sales. Research and Markets also found that in Indonesia and Thailand, online consumers prefer bank transfers, but in Vietnam, this method comes second after cash on delivery.

Cash on delivery is also the most favored method from eCommerce consumers in many select developing markets due to the level of banking...

According to the IDC research group (IDC)< the total security appliance market showed positive growth in both vendor revenue and unit shipments for the fourth quarter of 2016 (4Q16).

Worldwide vendor revenues in the fourth quarter increased 9.2% year over year to $3.2 billion, and units showed an all-time record high in shipments for a single quarter with 764,974 units and 21.4% annual growth. For the full year 2016, worldwide security appliance revenue increased 8.9% to $11.5 billion when compared to 2015, while worldwide unit shipments increased 17% for a little over 2.7 million units shipped in 2016.

The trend for growth in the worldwide market driven by the Unified Threat Management (UTM) sub-market continues, with UTM almost tripling its size over the last five years and reaching record-high revenues of $5.6 billion for 2016 and year-over-year growth of 16.7%, the highest growth among all sub-markets. The UTM market represents today almost 50% of the...

New data from the IDC research group (www.idc.com) found that large format printer (LFP) shipments and revenue grew by more than 4% year over year in 2016.

"The mix of printers continues to change as the technology and the needs of end users evolve," said Tim Greene, research director, Hardcopy Solutions at IDC. "The need to invest in the latest technology, to expand their business, to improve their bottom line, and even just to remain competitive is one of the defining characteristics of the large format digital printing market."

Shipments in the large format CAD/Technical printer market segment grew by 4.4% for the year, with a particularly strong performance in the large format toner-based printer segment. Shipments on the graphics side were up by 3.8% for the year, with a strong showing from UV-curable, eco-solvent, Latex, and dye-sublimation printers.

Stratifyd, Inc. — an authority on data science and big data analytics that provides AI powered big data analytics software — has revealed its first annual look at the amount of data created in an Internet Second (http://www.stratifyd.com).

The second has become forgotten, passing in the blink of an eye. However, on the internet, a second is a lifetime. Every moment, 28,935 GB of data are being created across countless corners of the web.

Stratifyd analyzed data from various sources to determine the major transactions, interactions, and companies that drive this enormous creation of information wealth. Stratifyd “welcomes” this exponential growth of data, saying that, as with more information, the company will be able to provide more accurate and in depth business insights for its clients.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, worldwide server revenue declined 1.9% year-over- year, while shipments fell 0.6% from the fourth quarter of 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). In all of 2016, worldwide server shipments grew 0.1 percent, but server revenue declined 2.7%, notes the research group.

"There were some distinct factors that produced the final results for 2016," says Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. "Hyperscale data centers (e.g., Facebook, Google) grew and, at the same time, drove some significant server replacements. Enterprises grew at a lower rate as they continued to leverage server applications through virtualization and in some cases, service providers in the cloud.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) led the worldwide server market based on revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016. The company ended the year with $3.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of...

A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) says the number of VoLTE (Voice over LTE) subscribers will rise from 488 million in 2016 to 3 billion in 2021, as operators reap the benefits from widespread 4G infrastructure roll-outs.

There are now 165 operators in 73 countries investing in VoLTE, including 102 operators that have commercially launched an HD voice service using VoLTE in 54 countries. Juniper found that the number of users adopting VoLTE services will overtake subscribers of OTT (Over-the-Top) voice app services, popularized by applications such as Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat, for the first time by 2021. Consequently, the mobile data traffic attributable to VoLTE will rise significantly over the next 4 years, representing a seven-fold rise from 2,000 Petabytes in 2016, notes the research group.

Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue was down 6.7% year over year while reaching $11.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016 (4Q16), according to the IDC (www.idc.com) research group. Total capacity shipments were up 18.3% year over year to 52.4 exabytes during the quarter.

Revenue growth increased within the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to hyperscale datacenters. This portion of the market was up 3.2% year over year to $1.2 billion. Sales of server-based storage declined 7.8% during the quarter and accounted for $3.4 billion in revenue. External storage systems remained the largest market segment, but the $6.4 billion in sales represented a year-over-year decline of 7.8%.

It should be noted that the size of the server-based storage market has been updated this quarter to reflect a change to IDC's enterprise storage systems taxonomy. IDC's new methodology for...

Adoption of newer connected home solutions is still at the early adopter phase, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The survey, of nearly 10,000 online respondents in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia during the second half of 2016, found that only about 10% of households currently have connected home solutions.

Connected home solutions consist of a set of devices and services that are connected to each other and to the internet and can automatically respond to preset rules, be remotely accessed and managed by mobile apps or a browser, and send alerts or messages to the user(s).

"Although households in the developed world are beginning to embrace connected home solutions, providers must push beyond early adopter use," said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner. "If they are to successfully widen the appeal of the connected home, providers will need to identify what...

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